Julie Jalone

From my other blog: Keep it Real in Sacramento

From the Sacramento Bee - March 14, 2008

The Sacramento-area housing market is still declining, but a surge of buying by investors in February helped spark the first major slowdown in Sacramento County's long slide since 2005, DataQuick Information Systems reported Thursday.

Some highlights:

• Sacramento County showed a February median sales price of $257,000. That was down 27.7 percent from a year ago. But it was up from $253,000 in January. The median price is the point at which half sell for more and half sell for less.

• Placer County reported a 30.7 percent drop in sales of new and existing homes in February compared with the same time in 2007. Its $364,000 median sales price was down 15.3 percent from February 2007. But it was up from $360,500 in January.

• El Dorado County sales were down 25.3 percent from the same month in 2007. Its $405,000 median sales price for new and existing homes was 15.6 percent below a year earlier. Sales prices were down slightly from $407,500 in January.

• Yolo County's February sales were down 27.2 percent from the same time a year ago. Its $318,000 median sales price was down 19.5 percent from a year earlier, but up from $307,500 in January.

Read the full story, "Sacramento County sees slowdown in housing slide"

If you have been a long time reader of my blog you may well remember I used to spend a fair amount of print writing about the monthly statistical reports. I can't remember when was the last time I posted something to my blog or wrote an article on the monthly results. I suspect there are several reasons, including the media spotlight on real estate and the "downturn," "crisis" or "meltdown" stories in the Sac Bee and other outlets almost daily. Other blogs, especially the bubble blogs like Sacramento Land(ing) focus almost every post on the market and do a good job keeping readers informed of the latest reports about the Sacramento area real estate market.

But today I would like to call your attention to the continued decline in the median prices in our area. As reported on various sites the median price of a home in Sacramento is down almost 28 percent in the past year. More importantly, in the past few months the decline has shown no signs of slowing down. According to HousingTracker, the change in the median asking price has dropped over 35 percent since our market high in August 2005.

Overall, prices and sales are significantly lower than they were a year ago and inventory is higher. Word on the street right now is strongly indicating an increase in activity but at this time, "good feelings" have not had any impact on stopping or slowing down the slide.

There is no single solution to our real estate problems. We need more Government and lender programs to help borrowers avoid foreclosure. The big lenders must come up with an innovative loan program to help borrowers buy homes with payments they can afford and budget for. Homeowners who do not "need" to sell should stay off the market for the time being and, and and....

From Keep it Real in Sacramento - February 23rd

If you live or want to live in California you have a greater probability of being able to afford an entry level home in Sacramento than almost any other area of the state. According to a recent report by the California Association of Realtors more households in Sacramento can afford to buy a home than all but one other area of the state. Check out my report on this story, "Where can we afford to buy" over at my weekly column at Rocklin & Roseville Today. I have also published it on my news page at jalone.com.

By the way, if you or someone you know is a real estate agent who is tired of working alone in a big company environment and/or is interested in joining a small but growing full service real estate brokerage we would love to talk with you. Send me an email or give me a call at 916 290-9339.

In my business area, Sacramento, the available inventory of homes on the market has remained steady for the past month and is down from where we were six months ago but the median price for a home has continued to decline.

The median price for a home, according to HousingTracker was $319,000 as of February 11 and is down 1.8 percent from a month ago. Looking back further the median price has dropped 16.1 percent in the past month and over 20 percent in the last 12 months.

As we move into the traditional spring selling season we can expect to see more homes coming on the market which will continue to put pressure on sellers to lower their asking prices.

What we are seeing at MagnumOne Realty is no showing activity for overpriced homes. I would estimate a good 80 percent of the houses on the market are overpriced. We brought a new listing on the market last week, 316 Roseville Street, at what we felt was a competitive price but the lack of showings has demonstrated we may have missed the mark and we will be working on getting it reduced this week because it doesn't do anyone any good to have it sit vacant and not shown.

From Keep it Real in Sacramento - February 10, 2008

With so many articles and news reports about the struggling real estate market why don't we hear more about short sales? I wrote my first article on short sales back in June of last year, "Short Sales: Road to Riches?" but still get emails and calls asking what they are, can we use it to sell our house and should we consider buying a short sale house?

If you are interested in short sales or the answer to any of the questions above, check out my latest article, "Short Sale Questions." We have completed a good number of these complicated transactions in the past year and I am happy to share my experience and knowledge.